Eroding memories builds on my practice making speculative maps using generative code. This work was presented furing the Bienal Sur 2023 at Institut Francais du Sénégal in Dakar, along with the work of Martina Echeverria.
Dakar is surrounded twice over. On one side, the sea, succumbing to climate change, erases the contours of the land by kilometers. On the other, concrete, allied with demographic expansion, rises in height. The red rocky point stretching towards the horizon jerks back and forth between natural disappearances and artificial appearances. Two opposing breaths of one land on which its peoples exist between each heartbeat.
The speed of urban development amplifies the fragility of Dakar’s living ecosystem and its dwindling coast. Whether by passage or by birth, artists Martina Echeverria and Linda Dounia bear witness to these transformations. Drawing from their memory of these places, spanning a few weeks or a few years, they map the cities of Dakar and M’bour. Through painting, video, collage, photography, and with the participation of communities, they create and spread the memory of two cities undergoing transformation. In this way, their works embody the memory that we will come to miss.
–– ANNE BOURASSE
Photo credits: © Khalifa Hussein [exhibition shots], © Anna Diagne [exhibition publication]